Playing Hockey
by Em Mindelan
Summary: This will all end. And then he'll be yours. A post-Telling, Syd POV fic in second-person.


I really can't stop with the S/V Post-Telling angst, can I? Although this story has some semblance of a plot. And dialogue. Wow.  
  
TITLE: Playing Hockey  
RATING: PG-13, definitely.  
SUMMARY: "This _will_ end. And then he'll be yours." Syd POV, sometime Season 3.   
DISCLAIMER: It's still not mine. And I still want Alias for my birthday. Anyone up for giving it to me? I promise Syd and Vaughn back together within, oh, one, two eps?   
SUGGESTED SOUNDTRACK: "I Shall Believe" by Sheryl Crow and "White Flag" by Dido.  
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This basically developed as I began to wonder what exactly Syd does for a hobby now that she's got so much spare time post-The Telling [well, no boyfriend, and only one job....what's a girl to do?]. Plus, I was looking for fluffy S/V clips to inspire me to write the last chapter of "Divergences", and I came across the hockey clip in "A Dark Turn". The first line of the fic just jumped into my head. Blame the rest of it on the post-Telling muse. Hee. This is my fourth post-Telling fic, and my third one in about three days. Wow. Now, if only the last chapter of "Divergences" would cooperate.   
  
This one's unbetaed, because I really just wanted to get it up before I went to sleep. But I'm actually pretty proud of this fic. I think the many disillusioned S/V shippers could find this one pretty reassuring.   
  
Oh, and it may make you laugh rather than cry. Or it just might make you do both. This thing is probably Angst/Humour, rather than Angst/Romance like most of my pieces are...  
  
  
**Playing Hockey**  
  
You've taken up hockey since you got back, as a way of keeping some part of him close to you.  
  
Besides, you need a hobby.  
  
Or something, at very least, to keep your mind from constantly replaying every moment of every day you spent together and wondering whether or not he's doing the same things he did with you with her at that very moment, or worse, whether or not they're doing the things that you could only dream about doing with him.  
  
You need something to distract you.  
  
And hockey distracts you, at least while you're on the ice, because if you didn't concentrate on what you were doing, then you'd spend even more time sitting on the ice with a frozen rear end than you do even when you _do_ concentrate on the ice, because you've only skated twice since you were five, after all, when your mother took you every week to the ice and taught you, leading you around, her larger mittens enclosing yours, keeping you safe and warm.  
  
You go to the same rink that he took you to, those two blissful times with him, where you had felt as free as you ever had, like you could have flown if only you'd had wings.  
  
It's only a small place, owned by a friendly man a little older than your father, who probably would have made a great spy, if only for his ability to never forget a face.  
  
You'd nearly frozen solid the first time you'd come in, a few weeks after your return, and walked over to the counter to pay your admission fee and rent skates.  
  
He'd looked at you intently, and asked you, "Miss, have you been here before? I can't help remembering seeing someone who looked a great deal like you here, oh, about two years ago with one of my regulars?"  
  
You'd plastered a fake smile on your face, and said only, "I'm sorry, I think you've gotten me confused with someone else. I've only just gotten back in town after a few years away."  
  
You know you should have told him the truth – after all, what's the damage in telling him that two years ago you were going out with a guy who came here often? After all, he's married now, and moved on, and he _can't be part of your life anymore_, as the mantra you repeat in your head every morning and every night keeps telling you.  
  
But you didn't, and you don't really know why anymore. Maybe it's because it's easier to pretend he was never involved in your life at all than admit that he's not a part of it anymore.  
  
And then you realise that you've visited the rink three times this week already and it's only Wednesday and you wonder whether or not anything you're saying – anything you're _thinking_ is making any sense at all anymore.  
  
You play late at night and early in the mornings, and stay well away on weekends in order to minimize the chances you'll run into him here.  
  
Because for all your efforts to forget him, for all your efforts to pretend that you're okay with him moving on – for all your efforts to _forgive_ him….you haven't.   
  
And you're pretty sure you never will.  
  
*  
  
You're at the rink one night, alone on the ice, enjoying the peace and quiet.  
  
You haven't even told Weiss where you go on these late night and early morning excursions, although you have a sneaking suspicion that he might have followed you one night, just to make sure you weren't going…well, you have no idea where he might have thought you were going, to be perfectly honest.  
  
You didn't confront him about it the next morning, although you know you probably should have…..because he's the closest thing you have to a friend right now, and it's nice to know that someone still cares.  
  
You're skating lazy figure eights down one end of the rink, focusing on each movement of your skates methodically, trying to concentrate only on the sounds of your skates cutting into the ice and the feeling of peace enveloping you like a glove, when you hear the sounds of another person's skates cutting into the ice down the other end of the rink.  
  
You ignore them as you hear them start to shoot goals in the goal at the other end of the rink, but their presence has thrown your rhythm, and you stumble and fall.  
  
You haven't hurt anything except your pride, though, and so you brush yourself off and get back up off the ice, and start to skate again.  
  
You can hear the puck hitting the back of the net over and over again, and you're impressed by the talent of this unknown party.   
  
But as you keep skating, unwilling to turn around and look at this person who has intruded upon your solitude, you keep listening to the sounds that they're making, the force with which the puck hits the back of the net, the speed with which they're moving on the ice, and you realise that whoever it is, they're carrying around almost as much anger and excess emotion as you are.  
  
And somehow that makes you feel better, because it makes you realise that you're not the only one with a broken heart in this world.  
  
You fall into a rhythm with their shots, one figure eight for every shot, and you find yourself falling quite comfortably into a routine with them, and you're no longer so annoyed at them for intruding on your space.  
  
And then they suddenly stop, and you stumble again and fall, silently cursing them and you in your head.  
  
You fall a little bit harder this time, and you hurt your ankle a little. Not enough to seriously hinder you, of course, but just enough to make a little bit more difficult to get up off the ice.  
  
You can hear skates coming towards you, and you idly realise that your unknown companion must be coming to help you up.  
  
"Hey, do you need a hand?"  
  
At the sound of his voice, you freeze, and your stomach turns to ice.  
  
You don't need this.  
  
You don't need him. Especially now.  
  
He's coming closer now, and as he skates into clearer view you can see his face.  
  
It's just as you thought, and exactly as you feared.   
  
He stops the moment he can see your face, and you practically _hear_ him thinking exactly what you had thought just a few moments before.  
  
"Syd?" He gasps out. "What are you doing here?"  
  
"What does it look like I'm doing here, Vaughn?" you reply coldly. _He could have at least come close enough to help you up_, you think irritably.  
  
"Well, right now you're doing a pretty good impression of a first-timer skater," he says with a grin, trying to lighten the situation but failing miserably, you think, as your rear end continues to get colder.  
  
"You stopped, and it threw me!" you protest.  
  
"Hey, that's not my fault!" he retorts.  
  
"Yes, it is!" you say, and resist the urge to cross your arms across your chest and pout.  
  
"Now who's being immature?" he grins again, and you realise with a mental sigh that his smiles are still every bit as potent as they've ever been.  
  
"Could you at least give me a hand up?" you ask irritably, trying to change the topic as you realise the effortlessness in which you're slipping back into the same ease of conversation you'd always had.  
  
"Sure." He skates forward confidently and reaches out a hand.  
  
_Yank!_  
  
You pull hard on his outstretched arm, and before he knows it he's flat on his back on the ice next to you.  
  
"Hey!" he protests. "That wasn't fair!"  
  
Through your giggles you choke out, "All's fair in love and war, Mr. Vaughn."  
  
And as you look over at him, forehead wrinkles out in full force and dimples beginning to emerge, you do the only thing that you want to do.  
  
You kiss him.  
  
And he kisses you back, kisses you deeply and hungrily, until you both realise where, and _when_ you are.  
  
This is not the Vaughn and Sydney of two years ago.  
  
This is not Vaughn and Sydney the friends, the lovers.  
  
This is the Vaughn and Sydney of _now_.  
  
This is Vaughn and Sydney the married man and the girlfriend who just came back from the dead.  
  
And this is not something that this Vaughn and Sydney can do.  
  
You watch his face contort with pain, and you can't help but hurt for him, even a little. This has to be hard for him as well, you know.  
  
"I'm sorry," you gasp, as he pushes himself up off the ice with his left hand, golden wedding ring prominent on his ring finger.  
  
"No," he says wearily. "I'm the one who should be sorry. I kissed you back, after all."  
  
He reaches out another hand to help you out, and this time you let him pull you to your feet, a motion that results in the two of you standing in a position that could very well be mistaken for an embrace.  
  
You stand there, and you look into his eyes and it's still too easy for you to be lost in them, those deep, seemingly endless pools of dark green that you spent a year and a half wanting to explore.  
  
"Syd," he says hoarsely, "You shouldn't be here."  
  
"Why?" you ask him.  
  
"Because I'm going to kiss you again, and I shouldn't."  
  
"No," you agree, "You shouldn't."  
  
He rests his left hand in his right, and twists his wedding ring around as you watch, mesmerized.  
  
"I love her," he offers.   
  
You know that the sensible thing to do would be to walk away, to just get away from this situation before you both doing something that you'll end up regretting. But you can't take your eyes off him, can barely breathe, you're so under his spell.  
  
"But I don't know if that's enough anymore."  
  
Your breath catches on his words, not knowing where he's going with this but wanting to know so badly.  
  
"But…I need you to know this, Syd. I will always be your ally. _Always_."  
  
You don't know if you can do this, stand here and listen to him say these words, do these things while still wearing that ring.  
  
"Vaughn," you say gently, "You need to go home to your wife."  
  
"I know," he says tiredly. As he turns, as if to leave, you can't help but say something to him.  
  
"Vaughn…I don't know if I can do this. I don't know if I can be your friend anymore and not want anything else."  
  
"I know," he says, as he turns back to face you, his tone more emotional than before. "Syd…before we go…what are you doing here?"  
  
You spread your arms wide around you.  
  
"Because this is all I have left of you, Vaughn. This is all that I can have of you anymore."  
  
"Why do you think that, Syd?"   
  
You feel like screaming at him now, and it's all that you can do to keep your voice level, controlled, calm.  
  
"Remember that ring on your hand, Vaughn? _That's _what tells me that I can't have you except in my memories."  
  
Your voice drops a notch here, until you're almost whispering. "I liked it when you brought me here. And it's quiet here, and peaceful. And when I'm on the ice, I don't think about you so much."  
  
It's all that you can do not to skate over to him and kiss him, knowing that he'd kiss you back.  
  
But where would you go from there?  
  
Because when you came up to breathe, he'd still be married, and you'd still be broken.  
  
You could sleep with him…it's not like you haven't had sex with him in weirder places before, you think, remembering better times.  
  
But at the end of it all, you'd still be separated by the ring of metal enveloping his finger, and the pretty blonde waiting for him at home.  
  
So what's the use in wanting what you know you can't have?  
  
You hear him sigh, and you look at him, waiting for him to speak. "Do you know what this is like for me, Sydney?"  
  
He begins to skate, dribbling the puck out in front of him, every movement of his body communicating his anger and frustration.  
  
"What's it like for you, Vaughn?" This time there's an edge in your voice, and you know he can hear it.  
  
"It's like having everything that you thought you needed…but finding out that it's not all that you need. I'm not making any sense here, I know….." he trails off, and his head goes down as you watch him move.  
  
"I love you," you offer, wanting to finally be free of that burden, and hoping desperately that somehow you'd feel it less after telling him.  
  
"I know," he says, raising his head up again to look at you. "But we can't do this, can we?"  
  
"No, Vaughn, we can't."  
  
He looks at you sadly, and he looks like a man followed around by ghosts every moment of his life, you think, knowing that surely you are one of them.  
  
"What are we going to do about this, Syd?"  
  
"You're…" you swallow, knowing what you're about to do. "You're going to go home to your wife, Vaughn, and you're going to try and forget about me."  
  
This is the hardest thing that you've ever done, but you know you have to do it. You can't complicate his life anymore, can't put his life at risk anymore. He's married, and he was happy, until you reappeared.  
  
"And you, Syd?"  
  
"I'm going to go home, and I'm going to try not to love you anymore." You know that you'll never stop loving him, but he doesn't need to know that.  
  
"Okay." He knows that this isn't going to be the end of it as much as you do, you know, but right now all you can both do is pretend that it's over.  
  
"Okay." You smile at him weakly.   
  
You're both spies, and you're both accustomed to lies.  
  
So it's easy for you both to pretend that it's over.  
  
But it'll never be over, not between the two of you.  
  
And this you know with a certainty that scares you as much as it reassures you.  
  
And so you watch him skate nearly to the edge of the ice before you call out to him, "Hey, Vaughn?"  
  
"Yeah, Syd?" The tone of his voice is so casual, friendly, relaxed, that it's hard to believe that this isn't two years ago and he's just going to get you a drink, rather than to try to walk out of your life again.  
  
"You're still my guardian angel, aren't you?"   
  
You know you shouldn't be asking him this question, not when he's a married man. But you need to see how far he's willing to go, and you know he remembers the night when you called him your guardian angel as well as you do.  
  
"Always, Syd, always." And he smiles and looks back at you, and somehow you _know_ that you'll have him in the end.  
  
You're not going to surrender.  
  
You don't know how this mess of emotions and oaths and broken hearts will end, this tangled little web that we three have weaved, but it will end.  
  
_It will end. And in the end he'll be yours._  
  
You smile like you haven't smiled in nearly two years, a broad grin, the same one you turned on him when he told you, in the ruins of SD-6, that he wasn't with Alice anymore.  
  
_This will end. And he'll be yours. _  
  
This will be your new mantra, the new words that you live by. You know that some people will tell you that you're living in false hope, that all you're doing is simply dragging out in the inevitable, that you can't possibly _know_ with such certainty what someone else will do.  
  
But you _believe_ that this will all end, and that when it does, he'll be standing by your side, always and forever yours.  
  
_You shall believe._  
  
And that's really all that matters.  
  
And so as you skate out off the ice, there's a broader smile on your face than there has been in too long.  
  
_This will end. And then he'll be yours._  
  
  
  
  
  
Well.......yeah. If you liked it, review. And if you didn't....well, can you pretend that you did? Okay, okay, if you didn't....well, okay, do tell me, but be nice about, won't you?   
  
Oh yeah, and this is *strictly* a one-parter, okay? Unless I get bitten by a particularly insistent plot bunny, of course.   
  
  
Em 


End file.
